24 September 2010

Red looks really weird in jpegs and on the Internet in general, so this painting (as most do) looks much better in person. I wanted to play up the vengeful expression on her face by making the black and red areas flat, but the red ended up looking kinda like velvet, which is a pretty cool conceptual contrast if you think about it.

The gun is actually a water pistol I've owned for many years and it showed up later in this painting (and maybe a few others --I don't even remember anymore).

18 September 2010

I made this double portrait of Alfred Hitchcock by combining two B&W photos (from magazines) of the master director. I flipped the one showing his very famous profile (it actually had a bird atop his head!) so that the main portrait (which I colourized) could "peek" out from inside it. I wanted the background to be grey and moody, sort of evoking his films, and the foreground bright and celebratory (and, I suppose, idolizing him, what with the golden halo), paying tribute to this master of cinema.

We set up a Museum of the Stick in our barn and my contributions this year were three drawings of musician Tony Levin playing the Chapman Stick. To further the pun, I used lipstick, which I found to be similar to oil pastels, but much creamier. I used nearly an entire stick for just three drawings.